Weak

Went to church last night and heard the beginning of a sermon series on becoming One. It is about the church, not the building or the Saturday-Sunday routine, but the people... a call to have hearts, minds, souls, that become one family with a heart for God. A tapestry of all, the strengths, the weaknesses becoming one, having unity of serving and living a life given to God without the mask on. Blake mentioned his Good Friday sermon "Weak" as a resource MP3 on the Hope Church website. I listened to it this morning and wow, this is a message that needs to be heard again and again. What a beautiful, honest, real testimony of how we need to be what we truly are in front of God and let Him fill in our weak places. It is about the cross, this symbol we think of as so holy and perfect and pious was actually a sign of degradation, weakness, failure and the lowest of the low. It took God to make it beautiful and strong.

Blake said that we need to let God do for us what He did for the cross. Show Him all that we think we are hiding, open the door to God and let Him in to our dark places. He sees me desperately trying to cover it all with my hands or distract Him and divert His eyes, but His eyes see through me. I need to stretch out my arms like Jesus did for me and show MYSELF what is there and own it. Know that I am nothing but filthy rags without Him. I need to ask Him to do for me what He did for the cross. He took that symbol of weakness, of shame...He made it a beautiful symbol of Hope. He can take the smallness inside of me and make it into something new. He can take the greed, the appetites, the pride, the broken, hard edges of my humanness and cover it with His essence. His spirit, His love is inside me and it can fill in the broken places inside me so He can see me as new, redeemed and restored. He loved me before I was all of those things. He loved me broken. He can use me restored by His mercy and grace and strength. He can take the weakest parts of me and use it for His purpose.

I am weak. So are you. God knows that. Our relationship is about forming a union between my brokenness and His healing strength. Taking His outstretched hand is all that is required. You can't "outsin" Him, no matter what you have done, because His love is endless and limitless. So drop the mask and give Him your weakness.